‘The boy? You mean Robert?’ His face began to burn back in the direction of the boathouse and then he caught himself.
‘It’s okay,’ said Hart, speaking for the first time. ‘We know he’s there.’
‘Then why?’
‘We figured it’d be easier to talk to you first. You might not see to lettin’ the boy go.’
That’s up to him, I should’ve thought.’
Fowler shrugged. Hart looked meaningfully at the gun sticking up from MacPhail’s belt and said: ‘Expectin’ trouble?’
Jordan blinked. ‘What d’you mean, trouble?’
‘You was lookin’ kinda anxious.’
‘I ain’t got nothin’ to be anxious about.”
Fowler laughed low in his throat. That ain’t what we heard.’
Jordan’s mouth hung open. He felt a pain under his heart that had no perceptible cause. Before he could gulp down some air, the boathouse door had opened and Robert MacPhail had come out on to the boards of the jetty. He was backed up against the rail, closer to Hart than Fowler, closer to his father than either of them. His hair looked several shades lighter with the sun back of it and the same sun glinted off the barrel of the rifle he held against his side with both hands.
‘Take it easy, son,’ said Hart, looking towards him and figuring that if it came to a showdown he could safely leave the father to Fowler.
‘I’m good an’ easy and don’t call me son!’
‘Okay, Robert. An’ I’m glad to hear you’re relaxed enough not to let your finger slip against that trigger.’
‘I used a gun before,’ Robert snarled, throwing up the top corner of his upper lip.
‘I’m sure you did.’
‘I heard what you said,’ Robert called across to Fowler. ‘An’ none of you sons-of-bitches is takin’ me anywhere. Least of all back to her.’
‘Her?’ echoed Fowler.
‘My mother.’
‘What’s wrong with her, kid?’ asked Fowler.
The rifle jerked forward from his side. ‘Don’t call me—’
‘I know.’ Fowler spread both hands in a gesture that was intended to calm him down. ‘Don’t call you kid.’
‘Anyway, I ain’t goin’. I’m stayin’ with my pa.’
Hart looked over at Jordan. ‘He know that?’
‘’Course he knows! What the hell you think’s goin’ on here?’
‘Ain’t what I think that matters. More what your pa there thinks. An’ I don’t reckon he’s so all-fired certain as you are.’
‘The hell you don’t!’
‘You looked in his face lately?’
Instinctively, Jordan MacPhail turned his head away so that Robert couldn’t have seen his expression if he’d wanted to. ‘The boy’s right,’ he said. ‘Robert’s right. Course we’re goin’ to stay together. Only right ain’t it? He says he wants to stay with me instead of go back to her I can understand that.’
Hart wondered why it was suddenly so all right for them to be together when it didn’t seem to have bothered Jordan MacPhail for the past thirteen years.
He didn’t say so. Fowler said: ‘She fixin’ to pay him to stay away as well?’
The question stung Jordan like a slap around the face. Robert lowered the rifle some and took a couple of paces across the jetty towards his father.
‘What’s he mean?’
‘Nothin’. Nothin’.’
‘Your ma paid money into an account in San Francisco to keep him from comin’ back, either to you or her. Every couple of months, regular. For all I know she still does.’
Jordan flushed and he tried again to avoid his son’s accusing stare but he could not. He couldn’t say anything either. Robert read the truth in his face and went sick in his stomach.
‘How much, Pa? How much did it take to keep you from comin’ home? How damned much? I’ll bet one thing, it didn’t take a lot. I wasn’t worth a lot to you, was I? A hundred dollars a month? Fifty? Twenty-five? Ten? Was that it, Pa? Ten miserable fuckin’ dollars to stay clear of your own son!’
Robert pulled up the rifle and for a moment all three watching, Jordan included, thought he was going to fire it at his father from point bank range. Instead he lifted it high over his head, gave one wild swing and sent it sailing out over the water.
Before it had splashed down, Fowler had started to say, ‘Shouldn’t have done that, Robert. Rifle might’ve come in handy.’
The others turned and followed his gaze. Two more men had arrived at the far end of the walkway, one American, one Mexican, both armed and professional, eager to finish off their contract to eliminate Jordan MacPhail with as little fuss as possible.
~*~
Fear replaced confusion in Jordan MacPhail’s face and his son read it there as clearly as he could have read his own reflection in the water.
‘Who are they?’ His face thrust towards his father’s.
Jordan gulped air and half pushed the boy aside. He looked at Fowler and Hart and then down along the jetty to where Oklahoma and Angel Montero were walking with an almost casual ease.
‘Who are they?’ Robert grabbed hold of the side of Jordan’s shirt and his father knocked his hand away.
‘They from Aragon?’ Jordan demanded of Fowler.
‘Looks that way.’
‘You know them?’
‘One. That’s bad enough.’
Jordan pulled compulsively at his top lip, blinking the sweat from his eyes. ‘Help me! Help me and I’ll send the boy back! I promise you. Back to his mother. Right off. Only … only … just help me.’
Robert MacPhail clung to the rail in disgust. His heart was accelerating fast and he didn’t want to believe what he’d just heard but there wasn’t any way of avoiding it.
‘You bastard!’ He launched himself off the rail towards his father, fists aiming for his face. ‘I ain’t no one for you to send anywhere! You stinkin’ bas—’
Jordan stepped sideways and punched his son in the side of the neck and the boy went down on one knee, gasping for breath. ‘Anyone’s a bastard round here, kid, I reckon you got a better shot at it than anyone else!’
‘Jesus Christ!’ hissed Fowler and ground his finger ends hard into the palm of his hands.
Hart fought to keep himself from throwing MacPhail into the water.
‘You gonna help me?’ Jordan screamed. ‘I’ll pay you. Anything you ask. Just for God’s sake help me!’ He pulled at Fowler’s arm and tried to spin him round. ‘For Christ’s sake, she was only a woman!’
‘Yeah,’ growled Fowler, ‘Like that was only a kid!’
He flung MacPhail from him like he was clearing shit from his clothing.
Hart watched MacPhail stumble and fall and made no attempt to save him.
Fowler said to Hart: ‘Much as we might not want to be involved in this we don’t get a lot of choice.’
‘He goin’ to recognize you?’
Fowler laughed low in his throat, more a growl than a laugh. ‘Wouldn’t you recognize a man who cut open half your face?’
Hart grinned a shade ruefully and stood wide and a few paces forward, widening the angle. Fowler moved towards the opposite side of the rail, letting his hand drift up towards the shoulder rig that held his Smith and Wesson. MacPhail was still crouched on the boards, his pistol still pushed down into the top of his pants. Robert leaned against the front of the boathouse, watching and not knowing what he wanted to do – even if he could have done anything.
Oklahoma and Angel Montero held their ground some fifteen yards back and the narrowness of the walkway didn’t allow them a deal of room.
Oklahoma was staring at Fowler and the side of his face that could smile was making a meal of it.
‘See that feller there?’ he said to Angel. ‘The short, fat guy with the beard. Name’s Fowler.’ He spat out into the ocean. ‘Tell you three things about him. One, he’s a detective. Two, he’s likely holdin’ on to that rail ’cause most of the time he’s fallin-down drunk. An three,
he’s the bastard who ripped up my face and left me with this patch of skin that’s deader’n he’s goin’ to be any minute now.’
Angel pursed his lips and edged his hand an inch or so closer to his gun.
‘Which is MacPhail?’ asked the Mexican.
There on the floor,’ sneered Oklahoma, ‘with the yellow streak down his back.’
Angel smiled and nodded: the conchos on his vest shimmered in the bright light.
‘How ’bout you, feller?’ Oklahoma gazed at Hart, taking in the Colt Peacemaker at his hip, the pearl-handled butt close to the curled fingers of his calloused hand. ‘You want a hand in this or don’t you?’
‘I got a choice?’
‘Sure you got a choice,’ Oklahoma smiled. ‘You ain’t interested in buttin’ in on account of that miserable scum down there or mister detective here, you can drop that fancy gun nice as you please an’ walk on out. We ain’t got no quarrel with you.’
Hart stood there giving the matter some thought.
‘What about the boy?’ Fowler asked.
Oklahoma shook his head. ‘I don’t give a fuck for the boy.’
‘He can go free?’ asked Hart.
‘Kid!’ called Angel, ‘Clear out of here. Run past us, jump into the ocean. Go!’
Robert stayed rooted to the spot.
‘Okay,’ said Hart. ‘It ain’t my fight. None of it.’
Oklahoma smiled and nodded as Hart used the forefinger and thumb of his left hand to gently lift the Colt from his holster and lower it to the boards. He could see the white foam riding the waves through the gaps in the jetty. When he straightened up he swung his head round towards Robert MacPhail and said: ‘You coming?’
Robert glared at him hard: ‘I’m findin’ out just how many cowards there are in this damn world!’
He spoke to Hart but the words were meant for his father.
It was clear from the look on Jordan’s face that he knew. Hart shrugged and kicked the gun sideways a couple of feet, then began slowly to walk towards the two gunmen.
Without seeming to have made any movement, Angel’s gun was in his hand and he was pointing it at Hart. ‘No chances,’ he said, smiling with a mouthful of even teeth.
Oklahoma laughed and looked first at Fowler and then Jordan MacPhail. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘just like these two.’
A gull squawked and glided close overhead. Hart stepped right up to the Mexican’s gun, right past the small, dark hole at the barrel’s end, passing between Angel and Oklahoma without quite touching either.
‘Some friends you got, Fowler,’ leered Oklahoma and started to move towards his gun.
Hart slipped on the damp boards and his legs gave beneath him, except that he wasn’t slipping. His fingers closed on the shaft of the knife inside his boot and it came slashing up even as Angel turned. The point of the blade pierced the flesh underneath the elbow of his gun arm and cut up and through. Skin folded back and blood leapt as Hart removed the best part of Angel’s middle finger and knocked the pistol high into the air.
Close alongside, Oklahoma’s immediate reaction was to turn towards the sudden movement, bringing his half-drawn gun round with him. Almost there, he realized he was wrong but then it was too late. Fowler’s Smith and Wesson was pushed out towards him and the hammer clicked back clean and smooth. The first shot shattered the bone at the top of Oklahoma’s left shoulder and caused him to loose hold on his gun. The second smashed his left knee cap and toppled him to the floor with a grinding scream.
Hart had Angel’s bleeding arm high behind his back and his handsome nose against one of the boards of the jetty. The barrel of Angel’s own pistol was cold against the olive skin at the nape of his neck.
Hart and Fowler exchanged glances, smiles even.
‘You had enough?’ Hart asked Angel.
The Mexican grunted something that could have been yes or could have been no. Hart raised the Colt back high enough to slam it down against Angel’s head with the force to bust his nose on the board beneath his face.
Fowler reached down and slid Oklahoma’s knife out of its sheath and pressed the flat of the blade against the dead skin of his cheek. ‘Is it true, you ain’t got no feelin’ there?’ he asked with a throaty chuckle that broke and faded fast. ‘You were fixin’ to kill me, you bastard!’
He turned the blade and drew a line diagonally through the patch of skin, watching the blood slowly bubble up, watching Oklahoma’s eyes fill with hate and nothing more.
‘That’s the truth,’ announced Fowler, standing up. ‘Don’t feel a damn thing.’
He tossed the knife down into the ocean and watched it disappear from sight.
‘Reckon these two’ll be any more trouble?’ asked Fowler.
‘Not till a few bits and pieces done mended,’ replied Hart. ‘By which time Luis Aragon may have someone on their tail for messin’ this whole thing up.’
Jordan MacPhail, surprised at finding himself still alive, was walking towards them with no clear idea of what he wanted to say. Neither Fowler nor Hart had a damn thing they wanted to say to him. Both men turned their back towards him and began to walk along the walkway, side by side.
~*~
Robert MacPhail watched his father’s face, maybe searching for something of himself. Looking for a sign of the man he’d dreamed about for thirteen years, hounded and chased until he’d finally tracked him down. And what had it been? A few words, a breakfast of bacon and some bitter coffee. He stared at his father and all he could see was that time when Jordan MacPhail had accepted the promise of his mother’s money and left him behind without so much as a word. Robert saw that and he saw himself sneaking out on the Apache girl back in San Francisco.
Like father, like son.
Jesus! He hoped not.
Robert walked past his father, past the two wounded gunmen, away down the narrow jetty, gaining on Hart and Fowler with every step he took.
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